James

Monday 20 May 2013
James

James is his name.  He came to my guest house to pick me up Monday morning around 0900.  He showed me various engineering projects around town; wells being drilled for the public water supply, the town dumping station, future building sites for commercial market stands, future road projects.  We then went to various technical vocational schools where he showed me classrooms and workshops for automobile and motorcycle mechanics, metal fabrication machining, and weaving.  

As the day progressed, he had introduced me to the Diocese of Ifacara Secretariat Parish Priest, Wenseslaus Kayera, and a head Nun, sister Senorina, from another district, Mbingu, the leader of a convent there.  These two spoke English very well.  James has shown me these various projects and introduced me to key people to help me find what I think would be an interesting and rewarding project to volunteer with before going back to Dar es Salaam around June 10.  The Parish priest informed me I needed to arrange my passport and VISA through the local government to be able to remain in the region, otherwise, if not done, the local police could detain me for not having the proper paperwork.  Father Kayera drove James and I to the government complex about 5 miles away to take care of these preliminaries.  I negotiated an exchange of free room and meals for getting involved in a volunteer water resources engineering or environmental engineering project in Ifacara with Father Kayera.  He quickly agreed saying if I found something I liked in Ifacara, he would move me from the hospital guest house to a host family.

Before meeting Father Kayera, I had meet Sister Senorina in the town center.  I briefly talked to her telling her my story of being in Tanzania.  She said she ran a convent in a smaller village called Mbingu about 60 km (36 miles) west of Ifacara.  She said she would be back in Ifacara Wednesday and wanted to meet for dinner then take me to Mbingu to see the convent and the various projects I might could volunteer with happing at her convent.  Without me asking, she said she could also provide me a place to stay if I decided to volunteer in her area.

James and I then rented bicycles in order for me to get a wider perspective of the district of Ifacara.  As I had not yet eaten for the day, I told him of my hunger and my original goal of going to the river to eat fish.  The river was 4 km west of town on a narrow, bumpy with washboards dirt road, no gravel.  As we left town we quickly emerged into the marshy agricultural areas of the river.  Being the end of the rainy season, the river is receding but is currently sustainable for the rice fields which extend as far as the eyes can see through the river valley.  The river valley is at least 7-8 km wide during the rainy season flows

 With the village and a distinct line of trees behind us, we entered the river valley with another 3.5 km to the main river channel.  Every ¼ mile there was a large culvert for the river water to pass under the road.  Each culvert had local village inhabitants fishing with homemade 20’ x 10’ nets on a stick frame which they used to place under the water at the exits of the culverts to scoop up any fish swimming though the pipe.  Some of these fish may have been sold to the entrance of the ferry terminal.  When we arrived to the ferry, there were 4 market stalls selling freshly fried varieties of fish from small minnows to larger fish.  I recognized the catfish and bought 3 small ones about 8” long to eat under a shade tree.  I had wanted to stay at the river for a while and maybe see a hippopotamus or a crocodile but I had to move out of the Nshanga 2 guesthouse and meet father Kayera at 1600 Monday for moving into a safer location.  Father Kayera did not want me staying where I was and said he could move me to a guesthouse operated by the diocese of Ifacara.